Module Example Version 3.09

For this final submission, I was asked to write in the Mass Effect universe, over a 48 hour period. Having little experience with Mass Effect (I only made it to the Citadel), I nevertheless tried to create a quest based around my favourite character - Delanynder. I submitted this module on the 8th of September, 2009.

For this test, I was given a specific set of guidelines, as well as a style guide to follow. Below that, you will find the final round of feedback.

Guidelines

"Here are the guidelines to follow for your 48-hour writing test. I've attached our style guide and a dialogue template.What I'd like to see from you specifically is a focus on player agency -- make sure that the experience is genuinely interactive, giving me multiple different equally workable paths through each dialogue, with genuine differences between my player responses. Make sure that I have a good reason to take the quest and that the quest can work whether or not I am emotionally engaged with the NPCs' stories.The guidelines below are for a Mass Effect sample. If you feel comfortable writing in the Mass Effect world, that would be great. I know you haven't played much Mass Effect, though, so if you aren't comfortable with that, please give a submission in the basic Forgotten Realms setting (not Planescape). Make sure that the quest feels like a genuine side quest you might encounter in our games; this isn't the place to try anything too artsy.Thanks again for your patience. General guidelines are below:This is an opportunity to create a module in a realistic timeframe for writers at Bioware. Use the attached writing template to create a dialogue-only mod (you won't have time for scripting), set in the Mass Effect universe. The toolset and graphics will still be Neverwinter Nights, but please write using the Mass Effect dialogue-style, and with Commander Shepard as the main character. The mod should be 1000 - 2500 words long, and should be a basic side quest that might believably appear in Mass Effect, with a quest-giver dialogue that provides a good reason for the player to take the quest, a complicating NPC to talk to, room for combat (described, not scripted), and a return to the quest-giver.Some rules of thumb to bear in mind:

The quest-giver dialogue must quickly establish a personality for the quest giver and a reason why they would approach the player. This is your hard-sell part of the quest; you need to capture our interest in this dialogue.

Don't worry about paraphrases. The Mass Effect paraphrase system is its own art form; don't worry about that for this sample. Just write the spoken player line.

DO follow the Mass Effect style of splitting the responses into Investigate and regular responses. Your player responses in Neverwinter Nights should look like the following.

Player Response 1: "Agreement." (A strong morally-positive statement which agrees to the plot and moves the player quickly to the next important step) Player Response 2: "Neutral." (A non-committal response for players who want to hear more before making up their minds -- not actually a question) Player Response 3: "Disagreement." (A strong, morally-negative statement which rejects the plot, or threatens the speaker) Player Response 4: INVESTIGATE (Clicking on this should lead to another group of player responses; all questions go here).

Make sure there is good variety among your player responses -- I should never have variants on the same idea ("I hate you" "I hate you so much I want to kill you," etc.). Each response should reflect a genuinely different player attitude and lead to at least some variation in NPC response.

Keep dialogue tight, clipped, modern and military. Be careful not to fall back into fantasy-style dialogue just because of the art.

Quests should be short and uncomplicated. Avoid lengthy backstory or long exchanges between NPCs. While it is good to try to have some kind of twist or moral decision, for purposes of this test, I would rather see a clear simple quest with distinct player voices with no decision than one that is overly difficult to follow.

Make sure at the end of each dialogue, I know what I am supposed to do next.

Make sure the player feels like the hero of the story, not a bystander getting caught up in the NPCs' lives.

Don't force the player to be helpful or to care; all player response hubs should include options to be indifferent, greedy, or busy. There is nothing worse than forcing players to say that they care about something they don't.

Narration should only be used at the very beginning of the mod to set the scene, or to describe combat/gameplay moments mid-mod. Please do not use narration to describe emotions.

Read your dialogue out loud -- this is the single best way to test if your dialogue will work for voiceover, or can be tightened in any way.

Please go over any previous feedback I (or other Bioware writers) have sent you and apply it to the new mod. The goal is to show that you have learned from the feedback process and will be coming into the job at a comfortable level of experience."

Feedback

"If you do choose to resubmit, I'd suggest you keep in mind a few of the following things which kept your submission from blowing us away.

Think mainstream. The overall impression from your mods and interview was that you were primarily interested in very non-commercial, gothy games like Planescape: Torment. It's been a struggle for Bioware to escape from that niche market and make more commercial projects, so it was worrying to some of our leads that your inclination was for a lot of backstory, tragedy, and other difficult sells.

Work on player agency. There was still some concern in your latest sample that a lot of the player options were not sufficiently distinct from each other. There seemed to be a defined path you expected the player to take and the responses were crafted toward that, rather than reflecting the most likely responses of a wide variety of players.

Think epic. The choice to do a minor side quest set in the Citadel seemed to work against you, unfortunately. I know that you had not played any further in Mass Effect, but overall, the Citadel is considered a low point of Mass Effect's side quests, and not something to emulate. Most of our Mass Effect submissions do an uncharted worlds-style quest, which can involve more combat, more danger, and more excitement. Since Dragon Age is a bigger draw for you as a game, I suggest maybe you learn the Dragon Age world really well, and try a submission in the Dragon Age toolset when you're comfortable with it."